The Ill fated Specter
by Phyllis Nodrey
Summary: [Revised May 04 05] Based on my slightly…different hypothesis of how the Sorcerers created Dilandau. A short, 2-part ficlet concerning what became of Celena, or rather, what Celena became. -Complete-
1. Premonitions in the spring wind

DISCLAIMER: Escaflowne™ ©Sunrise & Emotion & Bandai & some other ppl who aren't me. ;P

—

The sky was clear that spring morning, with few clouds scattered like brushstrokes of white across a canvas of pale blue. A group of men stood conferring with low voices on a balcony overlooking a neat little garden, their stark black cloaks blemishing the daylight. In the garden below were two people under the shade of a tulip tree. One was a blond girl of no more than five years old. Her wispy-curly hair was chopped short and she wore a simple white smock that went past her knees. Her face was tilted upward, gazing questioningly up at the terrace.

"He looks like a ghost," the little girl whispered, china-blue eyes wide.

"I would say that's because he is, Celena," said the golden-furred dogman crouched down beside her.

Celena turned to her guardian with an inquiring look. "He's not scary, though, Jajuka. I thought ghosts were scary."

Jajuka shook his head, smiling comfortingly. "No. Ghosts aren't real and they cannot hurt us. You should never need to be frightened of them."

"I'm not frightened," Celena said. "That man up there just looks very strange, and very, very sad…like he doesn't want to be here."

"A lot of us don't wish to in this place," Jajuka said quietly.

Celena smiled up at the dogman, a smile filled with childish, unconditional love. "I don't mind being here," she told him naively, "'cause you're here, too." Leaf shadows, shifting in the wind, flitted across the little girl's face, and—for an elusive moment—seemed to cast a shadow of sadness. "But if you weren't, I wouldn't want to be here at all…I…I don't like being alone," she added timorously.

"You will not be alone," Jajuka reassured her gruffly. "I promise."

The man they had been referring to stood unmoving on the balcony, his gaze resting on the half-creature and the girl child beneath the tree. He looked as insipid as smoke, starkly white amidst the dark cloaks of the Sorcerers on either side of him. He was unusually long-limbed and painfully thin; his colorless clothing hung loosely about his spare frame, billowing listlessly in the spring wind. Silver hair drifted over his fine-boned face, obscuring his mournful expression.

Celena had turned back towards the terrace. "He's not real, then?" she asked Jajuka, pointing up at the balcony.

Jajuka gently pulled Celena's hand down. "Don't point, sweetie," he admonished lightly. "And no, he's not real."

Celena frowned with incomprehension. "But if he isn't real, why is he here?"

"He is an Atlantean. He and his people perished from Gaea thousands of years ago. What you see now is only a shadow of a person that the Sorcerers have managed to conjure," Jajuka replied.

"Why?"

"Celena, the Sorcerers rarely tell the reason of the things they do…Often because there is no just reason."

"That's okay," the girl said quickly, sensing a latent anger in her guardian's voice. "I don't want to know."

Up on the balcony, the Sorcerers were ushering their Atlantean ghost away, back into the rooms. His whiteness was swallowed up in the flap and flutter of the numerous black cloaks.

Jajuka noticed that Celena looked worried as the balcony emptied. "Don't you worry your pretty little head, Celena," the dogman said, standing and pulling the child up with him. "The ghost and those Sorcerers' have got nothing to do with you."

He had no idea how wrong he was.

"Jajuka, look! A red butterfly—isn't it beautiful?"

"Mm, a Red Admiral, if I'm not mistaken."

Jajuka smiled as he watched his young charge rush over to a clump of flowers. The butterfly took off in a flurry of crimson wings, darting with spritely dexterity through the air. Celena chased it until she was out of breath, then watched as it settled into a clump of snowdrop and narcissus where it was soon joined by an entourage of common blue butterflies. They suckled peacefully with the sunlight shimmering on their velvety wings.

"I don't suppose I'll ever be quick enough to catch one," Celena sighed, leaning back against Jajuka's rough tunic.

"Do you want to?" he asked her.

Celena paused. "No…" she said finally. "If I were a butterfly, and someone caught me, I think I would die."

The Red Admiral butterfly fluttered its wings as though in laughter, and the common blues followed suit. But then, perhaps it was only the spring wind.

O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O

A/N: Eh…don't worry if you didn't get any of that…cuz I didn't either! ((big grin)). But leave a quick review and lemme know what you think, anyway! The second part, (which'll be considerably darker) shall be coming…whenever I feel up to writing it.


	2. Fawn of moonlight ever after

First of all, I'd like to thank my sweet and wonderful reviewers! So, here's a little something that I wrote in my first hour Social Studies class on April 13th. It's written to the tune of the Tigger song, and the ingredients mostly come from Nota Lone's wondiferous review:

__

Dillies are wonderful things,  
_Else I would be a liar,_  
_Their looks are made of sugar and spice,_  
_Their tempers of nitro and fire,_  
_Their bangs look bouncy, their moods are trouncy,_  
_they thinks that fire is fun,_  
_But the most wonderful thing about Dillies is…_  
_He's the only one!_  
_Oh…! He's the only one!_

A Big Thank You to Nota-chan and Sakura-san for worrying about my mental health and reading my writing during the heat of my Dilly fanaticism. I love you!

—

DISCLAIMER:

Me: **Dilandau-sama?**  
Him: **What?**  
Me: **Do you own Escaflowne™?**  
Him: (twitch, twitch)**…Esca…flowne…the Dragon…_VAAN!-!-! I'll hunt you down, you provincial pipsqueak! I'll BURN you and your stupid 'melef into a smoldering heap of ashes!_**  
Me: (sweatdrop) **I meant the series, not the guymelef.**  
Him: **Oh.**  
Me: **So, do you own Escaflowne™?**  
Him: **No.**  
Me: (glomps him happily) **See? We've got something in common! Not to mention, I've never seen a yellow submarine before, either, except on an episode of Magic School Bus™ a number of years ago.**  
Him: **WTF?**

—

The guards of the Madoushi laboratories had long since grown accustomed to the cold brutality and the strangeness that pervaded the atmosphere of the institution they served. A pair of them, dressed in the muted colors of their surroundings, stood talking in whispers at the door of the storeroom that was their charge.

"Something alive?"

"I didn't say anything about a living creature, but there was definitely something moving inside that cask," the younger soldier replied to his partner.

"Rattling around, you mean. You're too jumpy, Ketaimo," said the first guard.

"You don't know what I mean, Brogi. It wasn't rattling, it was shifting in there, like an angry spirit. I could feel the… ambiance of it brushing against the sides, and the cask was cold, freezing cold." The second guard adjusted his double-handed grip on his spear shaft as though trying to displace a bad feeling. "I was the one who moved the thing into this room—I know."

"Work here a little longer, Ketaimo, and you'll soon find that everything is cold and unsettling. Then you'll learn to ignore it," the older guard said, as if that were the end of the matter.

Silence followed, broken shortly by a disturbance from down the hall and around a corner. The guards frowned as they heard the high-pitched voice of a child in distress, followed by the rough, barking protests of a dogman. There was the sound of spear butts ramming against a body, and the dogman grunting in pain. The younger guard winced, but the older guard's expression remained stoical.

The source of the commotion was soon made clear as a group of men came sweeping down the hall, the leader one of the Sorcerers, holding a pale little girl by the shoulder. He was all but pushing in order to keep her stumbling forward. One of the guards in the entourage turned to address the pair posted at the door to the storeroom.

"Sorcerer Plathemis requires the newest cask to be delivered to the closet in C-64, now."

"Yes, sir," the guards chorused as the group with the frail-looking girl moved on past them.

The older guard unhooked the keys from his belt and unlocked the storeroom door.

"You'll know what I mean," the younger guard said as they stepped inside.

- -

The cell they put her in had a single narrow window high up on the wall. The sun shone through, but for all its valiant attempt, there was no warmth. Other than that, the room was unlit. When the men escorted her in, the guards' spear butts wet with Jajuka's blood, Celena numbly registered the fact that someone already occupied that single spot of light in the cell.

It was a boy about her age and, like her, he was dressed in a simple smock. He sat on the floor, facing up towards the narrow window, and did not seem to notice her entrance.

Celena stumbled up to him, not sure whether she ought to speak. The boy saved her the trouble by turning around, regarding her vaguely with his large eyes. "Oh, hello," he said, as though finally seeing her. There was something disturbing about his eyes. She realized with a start how his pupils were abnormally dilated and his irises contracted so that his eyes were almost all white but for a center of black rimmed by light blue.

The boy seemed to notice that she found it disconcerting and blinked rapidly. When he was looking at her again, his eyes were an average blue.

"Hello," Celena replied. After a moment, she got down on her knees to be level with him sitting.

The boy had turned back to staring up towards the window, looking like the cherub from a painting Celena had once seen, with the glittering dust motes swirling around his diminutive frame and his humble, bowl-cut blonde hair.

"Are you a little angel?" Celena asked when she'd grown tired of staring at the back of his head.

"No," he replied, turning to her with a good-natured smile, "I'm Chesta Solariet." He looked at her with a trace of curiosity in his blue eyes. "I haven't seen you before. Is this your first time here?"

"Here?" Celena repeated, not understanding.

Chesta nodded to indicate that he meant this room. "The Sorcerer's haven't worked with you yet, have they?"

Celena shook her head.

"What's your name, or, do you know?"

Why wouldn't she know her own name? "Celena Schezar," she replied. "What do you mean, the Sorcerer's are going to work with me?"

Chesta shrugged. "Tests," he said rather vaguely. He touched a few fingers to the side of his head, near his eyes. "They…did things to my eyes and my mind…It had something to do with chance, and with seeing. Anyway, now I can feel the fates of people… ringing—I can't get the details—but I can kind of see where they are."

Celena straightened. "You can do that? Then, could you tell me where someone is, please? He's not too far from here—a dogman with golden fur—he's big, and strong. His name is Jajuka and he…he…" Her voice trailed away.

The boy gave her a trembly smile. "Well, I…This sight thing is supposed to be a gift to me, to make me useful to other people…though it is very…uncomfortable sometimes."

"It hurts, you mean?" Celena asked.

"I feel like my skull's going to pop like a bubble," Chesta replied, nodding, "then I pass out, and I can't see well for a while afterwards."

"Oh."

She talked with the boy for a while. He was very nice, and the numbness slowly faded from her mind to be replaced by a wad of confusion.

Still, Celena didn't really begin to feel afraid, not even when the guards came back to get her. The door to the padded cell opened soundlessly, and a dark-clad man gestured for her to come forward. Celena hesitated, looking uncertainly at the faces watching her from the doorway.

"You must obey," Chesta said tiredly.

Celena stood and tried to smile. "Maybe I'll see you later," she said. She hoped that they would be friends.

The boy was silent, and made no response until Celena had crossed the threshold, into the hands of the guards and Sorcerer.

"I don't think I'll ever see you again," Chesta said then. His voice was soft but not subdued; his simple yet ominous words came clearly to the girl in the shadows of the hallway.

That was when Celena began to fear.

By the time they led her into the laboratory, apprehension felt like a leaden lump sitting in her chest.

The room was dark and windowless, and terribly cold as well. Goose pimples rose up and down Celena's bare arms. The door and walls were gray, and they gave her the feeling that even if she were to scream her very loudest, she could not be heard outside of this room. Celena hated that feeling, but it would not go away.

One of the Sorcerers came over to her, picking her up and setting her on a metal table. The metal was frigid and made Celena cringe, shrinking and wrapping her arms around herself in a futile attempt to keep warm.

"Where's Jajuka?" she asked the Sorcerer.

He did not answer, turning and walking away.

Celena felt the spark of defiance within her flare up. She jumped off the table and, seizing a fistful of the Sorcerer's dark cloak, demanded about her caretaker again.

"Tell me where Jajuka is! I want Jajuka!" she cried, pulling at the slippery fabric.

"The beastman's whereabouts is none of your concern. Let go of my cloak," the Sorcerer said in gravelly but absolutely calm tones.

"I won't! You'll tell me what's happened to Jajuka! Those guards hurt him! I want to know where Jajuka is!" Celena seized another handful of the cloak with her other hand.

Coolly, the man reached into his cloak and withdrew a syringe filled with a translucent liquid. He lowered the needle towards Celena's arm.

"No!" Celena cried, recoiling. The Sorcerer reached out to grab her but she darted away and fled towards the door. She grabbed the handles and flung it open, only to find that she had—in her panic—gone to the closet instead. The storage space held a strange casket, but no way out of the room.

Celena whirled around and found herself facing the blackness of the Sorcerer's cloak. The man grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her away.

"You seem impatient, little girl," he said, his voice flat but with a trace of irony, "running to meet your fate."

More men wearing the dark cloaks of Sorcerers came forward. They lifted her onto the table and began buckling down her arms and legs with leather straps. Celena struggled. She wasted no breath on screaming, knowing it'd be of no use—Jajuka wouldn't come; he was hurt and he couldn't hear her. She jerked around wildly, biting and clawing viciously at the Sorcerers' hands. But in the end, they had her strapped and fastened tight. There was no way out.

"We won't need this then, I suppose," observed the first Sorcerer calmly, returning the syringe to his cloak.

"Use it, Plathemis," said another. "The silly thing is shredding her wrists and ankles, squirming like that."

Celena felt the long, thick needle slide into her arm, the viscous liquid being pumped into her blood, and lost the last bit of control she possessed. She let out a cry like a wounded animal, shrieking names to no avail. "Allen! ALLEN! _Help me, brother…Help me! _JAJUKAAA! _JAJUKAAA! JAJUKAAA!_"

Gradually, she ceased to feel her limbs. So, Celena simply screamed, on and on until she tasted a metallic tang in her throat. Then she stopped, because it hurt so much, and she realized that what she was tasting was her own blood.

Of a sudden, the room seemed to freeze. The air became as sharp as midwinter's breath, almost, but not painfully. With blurred vision, Celena saw that the casket from the closet had been unlatched. Mist commenced to pour out. No. Wait—not mist.

It was a person.

It was the ghost from the balcony.

__

Help me, Celena mouthed, for all the sense it made.

The ill-fated specter met her eyes with a look that said, _Don't be silly, little girl. I, too, am a prisoner_. His eyes were the only part of him that had color. They were heliotrope—the color of bloodstone.

__

I don't want to die, Celena thought at him. _I don't want to die…_

I do, the specter let her know whole-heartedly. _But these men won't let me_.

Then the Sorcerers encased the pale, rose-eyed ghost in a tube of some clear material akin to glass. He did not struggle.

The Sorcerers then attached a pipe to Celena, covering her mouth. She felt a series of sharp pricks—on either side of her neck, her temples, between her eyes, and finally, it seemed to pierce her heart.

She turned towards the ghost before consciousness left her.

__

I'm sorry, the specter thought.

Then Celena was swallowing the winter fog.

- -

"I'm Chesta Solariet," the cherubic blond boy said, turning around to regard the newcomer from his little shaft of sunlight. "I haven't seen you here before."

"I…haven't been here before, I don't think," said the other boy, frowning. He had albescent hair, very pale skin, and eyes the color of maple leaves in autumn.

"What's your name?" Chesta asked. "Or do you know?"

The pale boy shook his head slowly. "I…don't. I don't know anything…and I don't understand." He walked over and sat down on the cell floor besides the small blond.

"Don't worry," Chesta told him, placing a hand on his bony shoulder. "We'll find out soon enough, whether or not we'd like to."

:-

The mountain forest was lit with the pearly light of two full moons. The sounds of night creatures filled the gloom, but all was as still as a tomb. Seven people stood among the trees. They were dressed in the leather jackets and enameled-metal armor of Zaibach's finest soldiers.

"Tell me, Chesta, which direction is the dragon coming from?"

At their hips, the young men wore long, golden swords.

"It's…close, Dilandau-sama…coming this way."

The blond boy collapsed against the forest floor as his commander struck him across the face. He scrambled to his knees.

"I asked you what direction the dragon was coming from," the tallest boy repeated. His red eyes looked like a demon's in the dark, and the bloodstone on his diadem glimmered sinisterly. But otherwise, he was wraithlike in his paleness.

Chesta clenched his teeth as pain filled his skull. "South…" he managed to grate out, "Dilandau-sama."

"That's better."

Without another word, Dilandau pivoted and darted off into the trees to meet his quarry. He ran with long, loping strides. His metal boots crunched across the forest floor, pulverizing twigs and dry old leaves. The night wind whisked through his alar bangs and past his ears; it whistled a dirge-like hunting call that seemed to fuel a spark of madness, which set the young man's eyes alight with an excited flame.

The scaly beast grunted as the human burst into the clearing before it. Its throat pulsed with ire as the boy drew his longsword with a soft ringing of steel. The blade gleamed as the slayer held it aloft in the moonlight.

Dilandau leaped clear as a plume of fire cut a swathe through the foliage, grinning broadly as the flames licked close to him, but not close enough.

"I'm not afraid of fire," he laughed, diving forward. "I'll have your heart yet."

Sparks flew as his sword dragged across the dragon's armor scales, but Dilandau didn't notice the jarring vibrations that traveled up his arm. He sliced at the dragon's leathery throat, but the creature swiped his blade aside with a steely claw. He dodged the dragon's fire, again and again, leaping back into the fray with renewed fervor every time. He was not daunted by his hitherto failure to injure his quarry; he knew not an inkling of fear.

For Dilandau was the hunter here, and the dragon, his prey.

Chesta and the others arrived upon the scene and, with one look, knew that it would be best not to intervene.

The pale boy and the raging dragon danced a dark mazurka in the moonlit clearing, accentuated by bursts of flame and the young slayer's fanatic laughter.

Sweat gleamed on Dilandau's brow, dampening his bright hair. He was shaking now, but not from exhaustion.

When it struck, Dilandau was ready. He charged forward instead of leaping back and away from the dragon's barbed tail. The lethal appendage swooshed past so close that it parted the boy's silver hair, snicking off more than a few long, hoary wisps. Dilandau drew back his blade and plunged it into the dragon's underside, ramming the sword up to the hilt. Steam and blue blood flooded from the wound, gushing over Dilandau's gloved hands. With one passionate motion, he carved the dragon open, and leaped back as it crumpled with a resounding thump, sending up powder from the crushed foliage and spraying blood.

Dilandau pierced the filmy covering of the pulsing glow within the dragon's rib cage. Then, tossing his sword to the ground, he tore the film apart savagely with his hands. He reached into the warmth and withdrew the energist, cupping the object in both hands and savoring the thrum of its power.

"Dilandau-sama…"

Chesta stepped forward tentatively as the dragon's body disintegrated, stopping a good distance away from his commander.

"Dilandau-sama?"

The pale boy looked up, his face bathed in the rosy glow of the dragu-energist.

"You're not hurt?" Chesta asked tentatively.

"What an idiotic thing to ask ." Dilandau smiled. He raised the energist above his head in a gesture of triumph, and the moon shone through its translucence like a bloody tear. "I am a Dragon Slayer.

"I am complete."

:-

Complete was something Dilandau Albatou would never be.

Made from a ghost, a stolen child, and human greed, he was like a half-formed thought, constantly fearing. Only he never realized that fear until the ones around him, who sustained him, were torn away.

Then he split, starting like a jagged seam across the milky, glazed surface of pottery. The long-dead spirit within him began to fade.

Finally, it withered away completely, leaving Celena Schezar.

Dilandau Albatou never existed, some say, there was only Celena, and a 'what if' that never turned out.

But if that is so, then he was a 'what if' that jarred a lot of lives—a half-formed thought that Gaea would remember for years and years to come.

Like a phase of the moon, transient, but never forgotten by those who loved him and passed on in his name.

O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O

A/N: The last bit made no sense. Oh, well! You can tell I'm more accustomed to writing elegiac Dilly-&-the-'gekitai poetry.

Chesta's last name is just something I made up. I like to think that it's pronounced "So-la-lei".

__

Fawn of moonlight ever after,  
_So shall all the Herla sing,_  
_For his days shall herald laughter,_  
_Born a healer and a king._

Does anyone remember that, the last verse from the Herla Prophecy (David Clement-Davies' Fire Bringer)? One of the Best anthropomorphic fantasies out there…honestly, go read it!

Phyllis (or Hopper, or Phillie-chan, or Gandalphus, or even Prince Romulus, for those who've known me since 5th grade!) signing off.


End file.
